An O.A.P.'s view of everything.

Monthly Archives: September 2016

Breezy but not cold for September’s last day, so an easy pedalled six miles earlier. Pic – of a swan on an old sunken canal barge – taken last May. The swan, and the barge, are still there and doing nicely. There’s a (minor) road-up along Bury Road – it reduces to one lane for a few yards – but Bury direction walkers/bikers can safely pass on pavement rather than going halfway across road.
After giving the old bike a drop of chain oil earlier, I read of the new La Ferrari Aperta – an open-top version of the £1,100,000.00p petrol/lecky hybrid La Ferrari super-car that sells very well. 209 models of the new car will be made – sadly already they’re all sold! But hey ho, the UK Service Industry, I’m told, is booming so the next Ferrarri made might be affordable – just need to buy, then flog, 550,000 bike inner-tubes!
(Sod me Pension Credit!)
Watched episode two of Paranoid last night. This is a soapy Police drama filmed (partly?) in or around Lake District scenery that could have been really good. There was a brill ‘stunt’ in last night’s slow-until-last-ten-minutes show – a copper was shoved off a high canal lock mechanism – erm? In the Lake District? Really good actors etc., but the soap gets in the way. Old New Tricks later was again bumblingly realistic as the gang solved another oldie case and followed Sandra – red-carpeting with her ‘boss’ – at a swank Police ‘do’.
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Windy but, again, not cold for out and abouting this morning. Had to wait at Bury South level-crossing for old steamer to pass, but that’s no problem, then it was up the slope to Daisyfield on the ‘return’ run. Quite a few bikes out with riders all ages.
Noticed that a TV car leasing ad. quoted around £500.00p a month, after initial mega deposit. Yesterday Iceland delivered freezer stuff; today asda brings the rest, all for a few £. For the odd item the bike, or a walk then the bus-pass, is easy enough. Even Radcliffe roads, at rush-hours this morning, were more like car-parks and, for general safety, walking was faster. And, how much of that monthly £500.00p pays for the ads.?
On the (really!) fun front the labour conference goes on about ’21st century socialism’ – do they mean join a (say) bike-club? Well, they are extremely social and very trendy.
Watched D.I. Banks last night and the saga drags on after the death of a major female character – the one Banks sort of fancied. The prime suspect seems a bit obvious but hey ho, this is drama not Sherlock Holmes, so anything can happen amid the tears and sad-faced acting. Actors are fine. There’s a bit of action now and then. But it’s all a bit slow, laborious and hackneyed with little or no uplifting humour. Later, an old New Tricks had two of the geriatrics drinking Viagra-like ‘tea’ from a forest-dwelling witch while they were ‘interrogating’ her outside her tent. Old, out-dated, improbable perhaps, but a reasonably puzzling (interesting!) plot and the usual entertaining laughs. Still very watch-able.
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Rainy but warm this morning for a quick look up Radcliffe New Road. Nothing seemed amiss and, as it was raining, came back via Radcliffe wharf’s (swans okay) slippery cobbles.
On the fun front labour now propose to eliminate all ‘grammar’ schools. This ‘education concept’ argument has been going on since I was at school, so nothing new there. Other than that, and a few banks sloping off for cheaper office-space, it’s quiet. 400 a.d. Roman coins, dug-up at an old Japanese (?) castle, actually made the news.
Gave National Treasure a miss last night. Good actors and a fairly good story/plot that’s more or less up to date, don’t always make entertaining tv. But many like it.
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Cold-ish and damp this morning but not a problem on two wheels and the (initially) hour’s ride is now done in under forty minutes. Right now drizzle and low cloud cut visibility over nearby fields.
A reported £7,000,000,000.00p profit for Aldi. Loverly grub eh?
Meanwhile on the fun front there’s talk of borrowing £500,000,000,000.00p and going on a benefits for all spree. Wonder who Wonga will vote for …
… and, apparently, ‘the German James Bond’ is up for tax avoidance … how can a govern-mental employee have tax problems?
They’ve done away with the 1920’s Road Tax Disc and introduced more modern online style car taxing – with a nice juicy £1,000.00p fine if you ‘forget’. Some (maybe forgetters?) want the disc to make a come-back. Last year car tax ‘raised’ just over £6,000,000,000.00p. – but the figure is slowly falling … last estimate for pot-hole repair nationally was, I think, £11,000,000,000.00p, so, as ever, whatever they do there’s cash-flow problems – but apparently crisis-hit hmrc still advises other countries on taxation matters.
Talking of pot-holes; is there a big one up Radcliffe New Road?
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Dull and rainy for the bike-ride this morning and not too warm. Fellow cyclist Sophie Wessex completes her £180,000.00p raising Charity bike-ride from Holyrood to Buckingham Palaces. Watch E-Bay for a cheapo (but tasty!) Boardman any-time … but, if she can do that surely anyone can pedal 3 miles, up or down Radcliffe canal tow-path, for a bit of exercise.
The local Market Hall, even after re-furbishment (but the roof still leaks!), is virtually empty of traders. Why? Here’s a slight clue (n.b., this is a Metrognome freebie!) BHS.
It looks like that nice Matt LeBlanc loses Top Gear friends to present alone. They could have done (did!) far worse for the reported £2,000,000.00p contract fee.
And, in China, the world’s largest radio telescope (500 metre diameter) is now searching for alien life. If it finds it hmrc self-assessment and tv licence forms will be posted. Strangely, those govern-mental may be wondering why MG car assembly (owned by a Chinese corporation) is being off-loaded abroad, due to, MG say, it being ‘no longer economically viable.’ Mmm … one market is much like another eh?
On the fun front most adverse reaction to that nice Mr. Corbyn’s election comes from his own party.
Watched Victoria again last night and, although basically a soap, it’s still interesting history-wise. Wonder if they’ll show umpteen nineteenth-century Bury serfs and peasants carving-up wind-swept Heracles Hill stone, to build that tower to commemorate Sir Robert Peel?
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A few showers around early-on but okay for a cool ride this morning. Hot ‘cycling’ news is that Laura Trotts got married, Sophie Wessex is well over half way along her Holyrood to Buckingham Palaces bike-ride and Sir Bradley needed ‘strong’ stuff to combat his asthma.
The fun front is quiet but that nice Mr. Corbyn has been officially voted Labour Party leader.
Other than that the news is, again, The Pitts.
Watched another lacklustre Father Brown last night as he (and others at times) hopped onto strangely modern and trendy ‘old’ bikes, raced around Woodbine and Guinness Cotswold village, to solve another murder. Several of the locals ride bikes there but you never see a Bike Shop – or even a spanner.
Mind you, you’ll not see a BHS Shop anywhere. But the name virtually thrives again, now that yacht and shop overheads are history.
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Cool but dry again so an easy out and about earlier. Carvery yesterday afternoon and, by the time you’ve shopped, cooked, and washed-up, it’s probably more cost-effective!
The fun front, generally, again takes a back-seat to The Pitts (mmm) and Bake (on and) Off which dominate many msm pages.
Later watched a couple of relatively new TV shows that actually attempt to ‘entertain’ rather than just fill an advertising slot. King and Maxwell is a simple male-female ‘pin-up’ Private Investigating duo that keep soap to a needed minimum while solving cases. Some great Gunnera shots in that park they keep visiting too. Their pet computer nerd – extremely but humorously dysfunctional in an original and clever way – steals the show at times with his muted but oft superbly logical ‘deductions’. Later still Hooten and The Lady follows the fortunes (or no!) of an unlikely, straight-laced but ‘pin-up’ British Museum archaeologist – Lady So and So – and nunnery-funding adventurer (Ulyses?) Hooten – a black leather jacketed vagrant? They go after ancient artefacts but get bogged-down with baddies also after the valuables. Rather than talking-heads this show has good action scenes with original ‘stunts’ and some (dubious) scenery and wild animals – last night a huge crocodilian in a sewer. Not totally convincing but good for a TV attempt at Indiana Jones. The Lady’s mother is played by ex-James Bonds Solitaire. Both shows are better if you record then cut the banal adverts that seem to stop the action dead. At last an hour or two of TV that, simply, entertains.
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Fine but cool again so okay for an early bike-ride. There are one or two ‘famous’, or should that be ‘infamous’ hills around here that cyclists erm, ‘enjoy’, but Ed opted for a train ride to The Peak District yesterday and then a High Peak circuit that took-in many of the Edale climbs. Best, or worst one, he reckons is Chunal Road heading toward Hayfield from Glossop. Winnats Pass – he went down it not up – was awesome. Bike used: Claud Butler crosser that handled some fast downhills and one or two rough road surfaces well, over the 50+ miles, for under £1,000.00p.
Again the fun front is rather quiet as, generally, and against many predictions, things nationally economic go from strength to strength.
Watched episode one of new Paranoid last night and half of it (or more) was concerned with a (large?!) detective force’s dysfunctionality/personal problems, rather than the crime (murder?) they were after solving. There are eight episodes so this is basically another sad-faced soap. Watch-able, with good actors, but hardly original. Later, an old New Tricks also had great chunks of TV time devoted to (Brian’s) dysfunctionality, as he stopped taking his medication, but this was given a lighter, humorous slant, until he got back on his fix and became normal, during a tricky investigation. No ‘big’ force here, just four bods in UCOS, and, even now, these shows do ‘entertain’. Brian’s old roady bike, a Peugeot, was, at one time, state-of-the-art stuff around Ed’s peaky mountain circuit.
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Cool, dry and windless, after last night’s heavy rain, so an easy out and about earlier. Pic 1 is of a Grebe family ducking and diving near Warth weir and taken this morning. (Attenborough eat your heart out)
They’ve put those new LED lights up in the street and it’s great. At night you don’t need lights on in your house when watching telly, but they don’t shine through bedroom window later on. It’s like, well, moonlight. (Pic 2 is of lamp-post with its new extension and light. N.B. the lamp-post was originally erected, it seems, by the same team that shoves Radcliffe Christmas Tree up… )Tried to find a bit of normal ‘news’ again but nearly everything relates to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie this morning. Interestingly Bake Off’s Paul Hollywood pulls £500,000.00p per annum from beeb. (I mean: Cake baking?!?) No wonder they flogged it!
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Dry, wind free and not too warm for morning’s bike-ride around local roads and routes. One or two half-fallen branches along Daisyfield access slopes deem taking a bit of care going up or down – often you don’t notice these until you ride into ’em. Such branches look small but in reality some can be very heavy – not safe to try and shift ’em alone.
Around that area a wary eye is being kept for any sightings of a) The Breightmet Beast – a black Puma like animal, and b) Muntjac Deer – a destructive invader (we’re told). Didn’t spot either, but there’s always tomorrow. (When there might be more ‘possibles’ to add to the list)
On the fun front I think there’s some kind of ‘leadership’ election thingy going on. Like I said – the fun front.
Watched National Treasure episode one last night (C4 – so, well, you know) and some really good acting from its leads – Robbie Coltrane, Julie Walters good at it. Bad language, nudity, dysfunctionality were all there as the episode was dragged-out to fill the slot. For folk so involved in reality this is a nightmare. For those not directly involved it is, now, rather un-interesting – boring even – and as such hardly entertaining. Not to mention the adverts!
Mind you, a certain govern-mental lady visitor here, yesterday, was taken aback in disbelief that someone was actually self-employed (un-funded!) and repaired bicycles and/or wrote stories.
People just didn’t do that did they?
Well, in that case Sophie Wessex probably got Hagrid to wave his (magic) umbrella over her busted bike-chain yesterday and that all TV channels, film companies and publishers got Mrs Weasley to ‘magic’ a shedload of stories/scripts needed, lately, daily.
🙂